Would You Like Flies With That? Bug Eaters Try to Get Some Buzz

He's making "chocolate chirp cookies"—with crickets inside—for a coming art festival. He puts crickets in his tacos when he watches football. And his freezer is full of bags of various insects, including dry-roasted crickets from Thailand, wax- and silkworms, and domestic crickets he raised at home, fattened up on oatmeal and orange rinds.

Bugs for Dinner

"Hearing them chirp all night long is really kind of beautiful," said Mr. Dennis on a recent evening as he prepared a bug dinner. "But then you've got to eat them, of course."

For Mr. Dennis, a 45-year-old painter and Elmira College associate art professor, the challenge is convincing those around him that bugs are tasty, and good for you, too—high in protein, low in fat, cheap and good for the environment. "I think it's what sushi was 20 or 30 years ago," he said. "Now it's time for bugs."

Across the country, entomophagy—the eating of insects—has gained a small audience hopeful that the inclusion of bugs in global cuisine from Southeast Asia to Mexico inspires more of a following for such dishes in the U.S.

It's been a slow crawl. For years, the idea has been pushed by champions such as David Gracer in Rhode Island, who has a company that sells processed edible insects, and David George Gordon, a Seattle-based science writer who published the Eat-a-Bug Cookbook in 1998. Buggy fare has been featured at the Audubon Insectarium in New Orleans and at events like BugFest at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and Bug Bowl at Purdue University in Indiana.

A recent paper put out by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations cited nibbles of interest in industrialized countries: Special insect dinners in Japan often sell out, and in the Netherlands, insects marketed as "bugsnuggets" and "buglibars" can be found at supermarkets. In the U.K., a website called Edible.com sells toffee scorpion candy, giant toasted leafcutter ants and oven-baked tarantulas.

There's some evidence it's spreading to a hipper crowd. Actress Salma Hayek recently talked about her penchant for ant eggs and grasshoppers on the Late Show with David Letterman.

The Brooklyn Kitchen, a store that holds classes and events, is hosting an $85-a-head insect tasting menu and drink pairing on Sept. 18. Its website touts Wax Moth Larvae ceviche, with a Brooklyn Lager. A smattering of Mexican restaurants across the country serve roasted grasshoppers in tacos or with guacamole. And a new yogurt shop in Park Slope, Brooklyn, has chocolate-covered crickets among its toppings.

"They're flying out the door," said Alex Rozhitsky, owner of Wicked Spoon Yogurt. "We're on our fifth case in five weeks. Some people actually will buy a yogurt with a cricket and then they'll want to take a cricket to go."

Mr. Dennis, a self-taught bug chef, has long had a fascination with insects. Paintings he's done of beetles and wasps hang in his loft in Brooklyn. He ate a moth on a dare as a teenager and years later, a cooked cockroach that accidentally came with a restaurant meal.

In 2006, he baked a pecan caramel cricket pie for a school fundraiser. It was his first time cooking insects. "The crickets, to my surprise, all rose to the surface," he recalled. "I thought, 'Uh oh, it's a scary-looking pie."

He topped it with whipped cream and—clearly labeled—the pie was the second to sell out.

"It got me thinking, if I could serve bugs through, say, tapas-style dishes or appetizers or entrees that contained less fat, I could begin to educate and enlighten people on entomophagy," Mr. Dennis said.

He began sporadically hosting bug dinner parties, gatherings of friends and friends of friends. The goal: to get people to question their definition of food.

In 2008, he started a website called Insects Are Food. He was soon fielding questions about where to buy insects, how to cook them and whether they're kosher (Grasshoppers and crickets: yes. Beetles: no). Now, he's working on a computer application with bug recipes.

Guests at a recent dinner—Mr. Dennis doesn't charge—included vegans, vegetarians, a "raw foodist" and an artist who drove from Pennsylvania just to sample the fare.

"The waxworms are good," said Kathleen Sartoris, trying a fried one. "They'd be good, you know, at Jean Georges with a cocktail," she said, referring to the upscale French restaurant in Manhattan.

Ms. Sartoris says she is mostly a vegetarian and eats food for its nutritional value, not necessarily its taste. "I like natural food, and this is certainly natural," she said. "But I don't know how this fits into being a vegetarian."

To start, there were "ento-teasers": waxworm potato fritters; kalamata hummus with crickets and a dung beetle garnish; bamboo worm guacamole, and "pokies"—a sliced cucumber with pickled ginger, topped with a Jing Leed cricket from Thailand boiled in Chinese Lapsang Souchong tea, with a dollop of agave nectar.

Initial reaction was mixed. There was talk about whether to chew or swallow in one bite. There were complaints of exoskeleton residue. One woman refused to look at the food and had to be fed by a friend. Ms. Sartoris thought it tasted "proteinacious."

Others, like Summer Wheat, an artist from Brooklyn, needed more wine.

"I didn't know I was actually going to be seeing the bugs," she said. "The antennas. The shells."

For some, the strategy was more how to avoid the bugs. Aimee Herring, a photographer, tried to hide the dung beetle in hummus "but I just couldn't do it," she said.

By the main courses, most everyone was slurping up the fried rice, lo mein and stir fry topped with assorted critters. Charles Browning, who came from Pennsylvania, had one complaint. He wanted more actual bug. "If I had any quibble it's like every bug is masked by other flavors."

At the end of the night, he vowed, "I'll never complain about a bug in my food at a restaurant again."

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